Gov. Charlie Crist's popularity slides

[ccharles000]

The bottom is falling out beneath Florida's once hugely popular governor.

A new St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll finds only 42 percent of likely Florida voters think Charlie Crist is doing a good or excellent job as governor, by far the worst approval rating of Crist's 34 months in office. Thirty-nine percent said he was doing a fair job and 16 percent poor.

Even most fellow Republicans don't like the job he's doing. That 51 percent of them rate Crist's performance as fair or poor is particularly ominous for someone facing an aggressive U.S. Senate primary challenge from former state House Speaker Marco Rubio of Miami.

"After nearly three uneventful years in the people's mansion in which unemployment has reached double-digits across the state and the real estate boom turned into a foreclosure nightmare, Charlie Crist has finally made something drop like a rock — his approval ratings," said pollster Tom Eldon.

Still, Crist's political troubles appear to be more about his own vulnerability than Rubio's strength.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/gov-charlie-crists-popularity-slides/1048529

[Pavlovs DiOgie]

1. Well the polster is an idiot

How is crist responsible for the worldwide economic colapse? If the polls are a result of that sort of thinking then theres a lot of really dumb people in florida.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

3. Sadly most Americans simply aren't as nuanced. They blame incumbents if the economy is faltering.

They don't understand how we got in this mess. To me, that's the saddest thing about the American experience. The average American voter is simply no sophisticated or smart in these areas.

[louis-t]

2. FL repugs have been promising to lower taxes

for years. Property taxes skyrocketed under Jebbie and Crist, from what I've heard.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Yes.. property taxes have gone up. Government refuses to curb their lifestyle...

My house went down $100K in value. Yet my property taxes went up. How can this be? Other than the fact that Government simply reaches into our back pocket and takes whatever they want.

We cut back and eat beans.. they continue to go to fancy seminars, drive free governemnt cars and grant themselves raises as needed.

[quaker bill]

12. Your rant

sounds a bit conservative.

Where I work, there are no seminars, fancy or plain, use of government vehicles for personal purposes is strictly prohibited and monitored by GPS units in the vehicles, and there have been no raises at all in two years, and only small ones before that. Others I know in government have not seen a raise in 4 years, have had their hours cut, or have been laid off. Some have only seen raises once or twice in the last 10 years. Perhaps there is some place in the state where this is different, but I am not aware of it.

Perhaps you are speaking of elected officials, who do seem to fare a bit better than the workers in some places. Even at that, elected officials account just a tiny portion of their respective budgets.

The real market value of my home has declined and my taxes have increased, see the reply below for the how and why of it.

[quaker bill]

5. Not really correct in either case,

it was property values that rose like a rocket under Jebbie and briefly under Crist, property tax rates have been rolled back, statewide, year upon year. Suddenly property values are falling and governments are laying off workers almost everywhere.

[lib2DaBone]

6. If property taxes are rolled back.. how come I owe more this year vs last year?

I didn't improve.. did not put in a pool.. as a matter of fact.. I get LESS services now than last year. Yet my taxes are up? I know one thing.. the taxes I pay to run school buses 24/7 is killing me. Why can't kids walk to school if they live within 1 mile of the school?

[quaker bill]

10. I do not know where you live

In a few places, local government did manage the 2/3 majority now required to raise taxes a bit. In only a couple of places local government managed to reach the unanimous vote needed now to raise taxes significantly. These places are so few and far apart that odds are 90%+ that you don't live in one.

I have owned my home long enough that the accumulated "save our homes" ammendment related lag in appraised value is still working itself out, and will be doing so for many years to come. This means that the appraised value of my home will increase by the constitutional maximum 3 percent per year, until it reaches "fair market value", if it ever does. While the actual market value of my home has declined during this slump based on the prices people are getting around me, homes around me are still selling for quite a bit more than my tax appraisal. This means my tax bill will increase roughly 3 percent a year for the forseeable future if government does nothing. On the other hand, the guy across the street, who bought in 2007, near the peak of the market, has seen his tax bill plummet by 30 percent with the decline in appraised value to reflect the current market. However, even that said he still pays more taxes than I do on his smaller home, it is now just a bit closer to equal. None of this was a Jebbie or Crist thing, "save our homes" was a citizen initiative passed directly by the voters to ammend the Florida constitution.

Every local government around me has seen tax revenue fall. Nearly all have laid off staff, from dozens at small cities to hundreds at the county level.

While I am no fan of either Jeb or Charlie for a number of reasons, it is not over taxes, as both governed over poorly thought out, but significant cuts in tax rates. If anything, what I do not care for is how the cuts shifted the tax burden to recent homebuyers, but then that all happened by citizen initiative, so we did this to ourselves.

I also don't know where the school busses run 24/7. Locally they have cancelled all but the most local extra-curricular activities, so the busses are not running nearly as much as they used to, which never approached 24/7 even at its peak.

[1corona4u]

11. Go look up the 'recapture rule'

When we all voted for the additional 25K for the homestead exemption, the bastards in the state govt. decided they needed the money back, so they instituted the 'recapture rule'. It totally washed out any savings, and is actually costing us MORE tax on lower values.

[MadBadger]

7. I dont understand any poll that use the choice "fair" to mean bad.

A lot of pollsters do this, and I dont understand. If somebody was polling me, and i rated somebody fair, that would mean to me they were just okay. Like I dont think they are doing a good or bad job, just a so-so job.

[blue_onyx]

9. I don't see "fair" as meaning bad either

If they wanted to use 4 options, excellent, good, bad, awful would be better choices.

I bet most governors have seen their approval ratings drop over than last year or so. People tend to blame the person in charge, regardless of whether they are truly responsible.

[IndianaGreen]

8. His phony hetero marriage didn't help

C'mon Charlie, come out of the closet!

[SoFlaJet]

13. Crist has been a good governor

he doesn't deserve what the wingnuts are doing to him in supporting Rubio. Charlie should run as an independent or switch to the democratic party.